WarGames (1983)

High School student David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Defense Department's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions! Together with his girlfriend (Ally Sheedy) and a wizardly computer genius (John Wood), David must race against time to outwit his opponent...and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.

Wargames was a movie that was way ahead of its time. No one was making films about hacking into computer systems. The only computers used in movies were on space ships. No home computer has ever really been brought to the big screen. Wargames broke from the normal studio sci fi norm of either Earth being visited by aliens (E.T) or battles of Good and Evil in space (Star Wars, Star Trek). With the raise in hacker crime rate now, and seeing how Dependant we've become on computers, Wargames was a movie with it the eye on the future. Imaginative story, great cast (who, despite other reviews, do not phone it in) Wargames is a true gem, as it was recently listed by AFI as one of the top 100 sci fi movies of all time. Broderick was perfect as a slacker teen, and Ally Sheedy turns in one of her best performance, making the most of an under developed character. Dabney Coleman showed why he was one of the busiest actors in the 1980's (though he always better cast as a villain), and Barry Corbin could play almost anything convincingly. while the special effects may be dated by todays standard, Wargames helped shape the way people think and speak. Backdoors, hacking, were not common terms like they are today. Without a doubt, much in agreement with AFI, Wargames remains one of the most important films ever made.